


Grand Jeté

by huldrejenta



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, But also lots of love, Community: rs_games, Dancing, Established Relationship, M/M, Sirius taking care of Remus, The day after the full
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 18:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5215508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huldrejenta/pseuds/huldrejenta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day after the full moon means waiting. Waiting for it to be over and for a new and better day to come. It also means bed time stories, talks about going dancing and trying to reach for happily ever after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grand Jeté

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Team Star at RS Games 2015, for the prompt Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky".

”Tomorrow we’ll go dancing again. You and I, Moony.” 

The words have a sour edge to them in his mouth, like a seductive sunrise covered by heavy clouds. Dancing tomorrow already might be more wishful thinking than anything else. But the words are, as everything he says to Remus, a thing of genuine concern. 

(Maybe he should’ve been one of those thoughtful people, the grown-ups, the ones who flip every word around a dozen times before they allow them anywhere near their mouths. Anyone would think that’s what Remus deserves. But Sirius says what’s on his mind or he says nothing at all, and even on days like this one, the grey and shapeless and unrelenting ones, he knows that’s what Moony wants too. His Moony.)

Remus gives him a smile. It’s weak, but it’s there, and it will simply have to do. 

“I’m not...” he starts, or at least that’s what it sounds like to Sirius, but a feeble croak is all he’s able to squeeze out of vocal chords that are weary, played out, finished after a night’s futile battle against the moon. He takes a sip of water (his hands are shaking as his fingers wrap around the glass Sirius gives him, it’s getting worse than it used to be, Sirius doesn’t want to acknowledge it, but it’s no use) and he tries again. 

“I’m not certain it’ll be tomorrow, exactly, but we’ll go dancing again, Padfoot. Soon.” 

Remus lies pale against the pillow, waiting patiently for this day and the post-agony exhaustion that comes with it to be over, for the not-full-anymore moon to rise and fall again and for the clock to tick-tick-tick through yet another day and night, knowing that if he just scrambles through today, it will all be a little better tomorrow. Sirius wonders how much of Remus’ life will amount to this. Being reduced to slow and patient suffering through the hours, watching them bleed together into days and weeks and years, just waiting for them to be over. 

Keeping his eyes open even a second longer is an unreachable dream to Remus, it seems, and so they flutter shut. His eyelids are too heavy for his tired body. It’s a detail that tears Sirius apart more than tending to this month’s bruises ever could. 

But Remus smiles, looking for all the world like someone who didn’t just cough blood and bile and self-contempt into a hastily transfigured bucket (Sirius really should learn to have one at the ready, but he doesn’t, every month it’s _maybe today will be easier_ ). 

“Tell me a story,” Remus says, “will you?”

Yes. Sirius can do that. The familiarity of the request washes over him like a soothing lullaby, and he lets his hand cover Remus’. This is theirs, always has been, for as long as they’ve spent this particular day of the lunar calendar together. Sirius will tell Remus a story, one of joy, sometimes fuelled by bravery or longing, but the story is never about young men who suspect that happily ever after isn’t written in the stars for them.

“I can tell you about two guys who decide to go dancing together.”

“Oh, good. Yes. Do that. Sounds like my kind of story.”

It’s remarkably easy, telling the stories. His head is full of them. It’s one thing he’s always been good at, the conquering of people’s attention with no other weapon that his voice and his words. And he can make Moony smile.

“I don’t know, exactly, when we started dancing, Remus,” he says. “You’ve always been a dancer. Every movement you’ve made for as long as I’ve known you has been like a dance to me, a soft, graceful, perfect dance, performed with quiet strength, so beautiful.”

“Okay,” Remus slurs with a twitch of a tired smile, “I’m already yours, you know, there’s really no need to try and sweet-talk me into anything.”

“Shh. I’m complimenting you here, so you just relax and listen, could you possibly do that for me?”

“Ha. I suppose.”

“Well, then. Where was I? Yes. It’s true, you’ve always danced your way through everything and you – hey, don’t laugh at me, that’s very ungrateful, Moony. I’m doing my best here.”

“I know. You always do.”

“Too much, though?”

“Just a smidge.”

“It’s still true.” 

He pulls the sheets a little closer to Remus’ chin when a shiver runs through him, but Remus looks content. He’s paler and thinner than ever, but content, so maybe Sirius is doing something right. 

“The two young men I was going to tell you about – let’s call them Moony and Padfoot, shall we – started going out to dance at clubs as well, together. Bloody inevitable, it was. Being grown-ups and everything, being allowed into the clubs without even the tiniest _Confundo_ , because that’s not _right_ , apparently. No one could stop them now.”

Has Remus fallen asleep? No, not yet. 

“Moony and Padfoot had their first kiss on the dance floor, yes, I know, terribly cliché and all. They were dancing to 'The Great Gig in the Sky'.” 

(The singer’s voice had been tainted with ecstasy or agony, it was hard to tell. Maybe it was a little bit of both, just like inside Sirius. Because yes, he had Remus in his arms, their yearlong dancing around each other had finally led to this, and he wanted to laugh and laugh and it was brilliant. But he also knew, with a certainty he didn’t know where was coming from; maybe it was a Black-thing, maybe it was a love-thing, maybe it was the looming war whispering in his ear; that this was something that would end. One day, their dancing would cease. At some point they would be ripped apart no matter how desperately they tried to cling to each other. A voice inside his head, a cruel, smooth, unrelenting voice cackled gleefully at his naïve attempts to be happy; haha, the voice said, you can take that optimism of yours and _Vanish_ it, because it will all end, soon.

But Remus had been so warm as they were dancing, cupping Sirius’ cheeks with both hands and looking at him with that particular sparkle in his eyes that said _I love you, you silly mutt_. So Sirius pushed the voice away. He was going to grab onto whatever time Universe granted them, he wanted to live, to breathe, to _be_ every second he could spend with Remus. Acknowledging anything else – no. Not today. Not ever.)

“Story over already?” Remus asks, quietly urgent. _Are you still here?_

“Not yet,” Sirius says. _I’m here, Remus, of course I am._

“James asked me, you know. Not long ago. How come you and Moony didn’t get together back at Hogwarts, he said. Odd question, I thought then.”

Because Sirius had always belonged with Remus. They’d danced around each other, with each other, ever since they first met. Sometimes they danced close together, sending each other secret smiles over lunch or while doing dull-as-fuck Herbology homework under Madame Pince’s austere supervision. Sometimes their dancing was so far apart that it felt like dancing solo, like floating alone through the painfully wide skies, but always finding their way back to each other. Their dancing could be sad waltzes where they lent each other a shoulder to cry on. It could be fiery tangos filled with late nights in the common room where they talked about everything and nothing, and Remus forced him to listen to Pink Floyd. And through it all, Sirius never doubted who his dancing partner was, no matter what was visible to the others. 

He’d been so certain that Remus knew as well. It wasn’t until later, until they started dancing in the traditional sense, after walking to the club on wintry pavements and kissing on the dancefloor while someone screamed their heart out about some gig in the sky – that’s when Sirius realised that Remus hadn’t known. He hadn’t gone through school knowing that Sirius loved him. Sirius is determined to make up for every day that Remus has lived through without going to sleep at night telling himself _yes, yes, of course Sirius Black loves me._

“Anyway," Sirius says, "our two heroes of the story went home to Padfoot’s flat that evening, after they’d kissed, finally. ‘Looks like it’s going to snow,’ Moony said. Padfoot rather liked the image of snowflakes landing softly in Moony’s hair. He wondered if this was something that happened to everyone, during late winter nights, after having kissed. This overwhelming urge to walk around aimlessly with the biggest grin on their faces, because one very special person exists. Did everyone feel like whooping and hollering into the empty streets or to the occasional drunken sod that staggered home, pretty much the same as they were, yelling that _I’m With Moony, Look At Me, Everybody, Look At Me?_ ‘I’ll make it snow for you if you want me to,’ Padfoot said, and their warm breath puffed into the frosty air.”

(Even the first time they’d made love was after a night spent dancing. Sirius feels stupid for using the phrase made love, even inside his own head, but that’s what it was, full of post-dancing energy and three-pints-of-beer bliss. 

“Did you know,” Remus had said as he stripped off Sirius’ jumper with insistent fingers, “how many years I’ve spent imagining the taste of your skin beneath your collarbone?” 

And then, “Do you have any idea,” as he slid his hand underneath Sirius’ waistband, “how impossibly stunning you are?” 

And finally, “Could you even begin to imagine,” as he pulled down Sirius’ pants, “the strength of my desire for you in this very second?” 

Something broke inside Sirius, and he knew, like a confirmation of what he’d always known, that he would never get over Remus. This was it for him.)

Remus is shifting in the bed. He’s sweating now, and Sirius washes his face, gently. “Are you this beautiful all the time?” His hands ghosts across Remus’ cheek, so pale and warm and glorious.

“What?”

“You must be. I’ve seen you in every situation imaginable. Always beautiful. I don’t think you could be anything else even if you tried.”

“Merlin, Sirius. Sometimes I have a hard time believing that you’re a real person. The things you say. It’s completely unreal, like a dream.”

“A good dream?”

Remus opens his eyes, just for a second, but still. “What do you think?”

And then he sinks back even further into the pillow. _Weaker every month, see, look at him, Sirius, not much strength left now._

Sirius lies down next to Remus, slowly, and breathes him in.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he whispers into Remus’ ear. “People say that no one can have it all. Love and friendship and happiness. Tell you what, Moony, we’re going to be the first ones. The first ones to have it all, you and I. Because I’ll never let you go. And if you go places where I can’t follow, we’ll find each other in the sky. There’s a great gig going on up there, remember? Can you see us? Imagine what it would be like to dance together, up there in the sky. It’s quite the leap, but we can have it all, Moony. Anything.”

Silence fills the room. Remus’ breathing is deep and even, but he jolts awake, fumbling for something. “Are you there?” he whispers. “Will you stay?” _With me?_

Sirius lifts the sheets, gently, and crawls closer to Remus under the dusty light of an outside lamppost. He exhales, finds a hand next to his, squeezes it and holds on.

“Of course I’ll stay, Remus. You and I, always. Of course I’ll stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are very much appreciated <3  
> I'm also on [LiveJournal](http://huldrejenta.livejournal.com/profile/) and [Tumblr](http://huldrejenta.tumblr.com/) :) Feel free to say hi!


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